In the world of commercial real estate, one or more rental spaces may be designed to occupy a single floor plan containing a plurality of separate, adjacent rooms. Subsequently, the configuration of rental spaces may be altered by either subdividing a single space into multiple adjacent spaces or by combining several adjacent spaces to create a singular enlarged rental space.
A common method for subdividing or enlarging rental spaces entails either cutting in and installing new doorways, or closing or filling-in existing doorways in the building walls separating the various rooms. To subdivide a large space, the doorways between adjacent rooms are preferably sealed off by installing dry wall or the like to fill in the doorway to create a continuous solid wall. Alternatively, to combine adjacent rooms into a common rental space, a doorway is formed in an existing wall by removing selective portions of the wall to create an opening, framing the opening thus created, and installing a door to the frame. It is, of course, possible and indeed, a common practice, to later reseal a doorway thus created to re-subdivide the adjacent spaces into a different configuration.
The current practice for closing off an existing doorway involves first, the removal of the door, and its associated doorframe and moldings to leave an opening. Then, the door opening is physically filled in with suitable wall materials including for example, studs and dry wall, or concrete or cinder blocks and the like to reconstruct the wall. Thereafter, the now continuous wall is wallpapered, taped, textured and painted on both sides and a baseboard installed. Obviously, the reverse process is used to open a doorway at this or any other location in the wall. Specifically, the wall is first cut through in the desired size and shape of the doorway to be formed. Then, the wall material is removed and the appropriate doorframes, moldings and doors (as desired) are attached.
Though the heightened security provided by the aforesaid practice of constructing new walls to fill in door openings is of paramount importance, there are still further reasons that these methods are preferable to the mere closing and locking of an existing door between adjacent spaces. For example, the closed off, continuous wall also provides a sound deadening effect and increases the fire retardance between the two spaces. Furthermore, an uninterrupted solid wall has a more pleasing, professional appearance than does a non-functioning locked door. Such an appearance further contributes to a beneficial feeling of permanence for the tenant which affects not only goodwill but ultimately positively contributes also to the marketability of the rental spaces.
However, considerable disadvantages also accompany the use of these above-described procedures. For example, the process of ripping out walls to create doorways and the reestablishment of walls in once opened doorways is expensive, messy and time-consuming during which time the lessor is not receiving rent. Other than the time, materials and effort required to erect and close off a wall or vice versa, to tear one down and, in lieu thereof, install all the necessary doorway hardware including doorframes, doors and moldings, etc; further mess and expense are also usually encountered due to finishing requirements such as painting or otherwise resurfacing both sides of the entire wall. These construction efforts may also impinge on the adjacent ceilings and floors and thereby cause further and potentially different resurfacing challenges. Additionally, the damage often done to the floor, frequently necessitates re-carpeting significant portions, if not all of the newly adjoined rooms.
Nevertheless, despite the benefits and disadvantages of the above methods for floor plan reconfiguration, there have been several other attempts described in the prior art to provide disassemblable modular walls or partitions to facilitate the reconfiguration of office spaces. These, however, generally disclose structures and methods for interconnecting a plurality of partition units to create separately walled-in structures such as office cubicles or "turkey pens". For example, Robertson (U.S. Pat. No. 2,958,403) teaches a demountable partition adapted primarily for erection in an existing room to enclose a sub area of a given room.. A plurality of upright studs are arranged, in spaced, substantially parallel relationship and a plurality of wall board panels are attached to the studs in abutting edge-to-edge relationship thereto to define one or more walls of the partitioned subarea.
Similarly, Guarino et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 3,922,830) teach adjustable partition modules having at least three layers of internal fire resistant and sound deadening material, vertical adjusting means, and means for interconnection of adjacent modules requiring minimal installation hardware.
Still another partition is described by Hell (U.S. Pat. No. 4,192,106) who teaches modular elements used not only for creating disassemblable walls or cabinets, but also for erecting writing tables and other pieces of furniture. Hell generally comprises wall panels having on each longitudinal edge, box-like metal sections which coact with columnar interconnection devices to provide a means for connection of the wall panels.
A further modification of the general office cubicle concept is disclosed in Kissinger (U.S. Pat. No. 5,125,202) who teaches slidable privacy panels installable within a discrete wall panel to provide alternatively open or closed, private work stations.
Another line of references discloses closet-like enclosures such as the wall mounted closet described in Magnuson et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 3,433,549) who teach a unit comprising a pair of side panels and a set of shelves which are supported on wall-mounted brackets. However, the structure of Magnuson et al. in requiring all of the components to be separately mounted to the wall, makes the Magnuson closet unit incompatible with attachment to existing doorframes.
Still other references address the desire for sound deadening closet-like enclosures. For example, Judelson (U.S. Pat. No. 1,857,913) and Rosendale (U.S. Pat. No. 2,280,543) each teach cabinets or booths, such as telephone booths, which comprise separate, compact parts capable of quick and easy assembly. More recently, Eckel (U.S. Pat. No. 5,210,984) teaches a similarly easily assembled, sound deadening audiometric booth made from modular acoustic panels.
From the foregoing, it is readily apparent that while office cubicle units, modular booths, closets and the like are well known, none of the cited references either teach or even suggest means and methods of creating and installing a modular closet-type doorway unit to semi-permanently close off undesired door openings in a way to create independent, secure and discrete rental spaces within a master floor plan containing a plurality of interconnected office rooms.
Therefore a need still exists for means and methods to simply, quickly, easily, economically and securely close off existing doorways to subdivide larger rental spaces into a plurality of discrete secured smaller rental spaces and at the same time, allow those smaller spaces to be readily converted back to undivided, larger spaces. It is toward the satisfaction of these needs that the present invention is directed.